Hamlet
1964: Philip Saville

This one was, until very recently, rather hard to get hold of, but it has been released on DVD as Hamlet at Elsinore. It features Christopher Plummer, probably most widely known to popular cinema audiences for one of the roles he least liked — Capt. von Trapp in The Sound of Music. It has the curious distinction (as the re-release title implies) of having been filmed at Elsinore itself — the actual location where the events of the play were originally supposed to have happened. It is probably irrelevant, however: Shakespeare almost certainly never saw the place himself, and there’s very little more than the castle’s name that really figures into the play itself. From the play, we know that it must have had chambers where people could sleep, probably a throne room of sorts, maybe a separate hall where there could be theatrical presentations, and a garden somewhere on the premises where old Hamlet could be killed. In that respect, it’s much like any other castle. In any case, what remains of Elsinore now is probably not much like either the place inhabited by the historical Hamlet (Amleth, if Saxo Grammaticus is trustworthy) prior to the eleventh century, or the Elsinore that would have been contemporary with Shakespeare in the seventeenth. The much-ballyhooed location is, all in all, just a gimmick.

As a gimmick, though, it’s relatively harmless, and doesn’t get in the way of a generally fine performance of the play. Plummer was then at the peak of his youthful powers, and he projects a strong, rather appealing character rather than the wishy-washy indecisiveness of Olivier’s version. Other characters are similarly compelling. The young Michael Caine (the Dark Knight movies) is here as Horatio, Roy Kinnear (known from a number of things, including a memorable performance as Planchet in the 1974-5 The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers) is the Gravedigger, and Robert Shaw (Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons only two years after this production) is a commanding presence as Claudius.

Like the Olivier version before it, this is filmed in a moody black and white. It is cut somewhat, but not overly brutally. It has virtually nothing nothing offensive for younger audiences, though there may not be enough cinematic zip to hold the attention of younger viewers who are not already engaged in the play.

Buy Hamlet at Elsinore from Amazon.